Open Source Diva named CTO Options

[anthony]

So who is this Danese Cooper? I see that David Gerard created her BLP in 2005. On that point alone I'm skeptical.

[Somey]

Seems to me they need someone whose OSS background is LAMP, not Java and OO.o...?

Sorry, I just thought it would be fun to use a few buzzword acronyms.

The main thing to be concerned about now is who drives feature prioritization. If it's still going to be Jimbo and Erik Moeller, then we can probably expect more of the same, i.e., vaporware, or nothing of any value whatsoever. If it's Cooper, then it remains to be seen, but the mere fact that Cooper is female is probably a good sign. Females tend to be more compassionate and less narcissistic, though of course we've seen plenty of exceptions to that in Wikiland. Still, almost anybody is likely to be more compassionate and less narcissistic than Erik Moeller and Jimbo.

Anyway, it's always best to give people a chance to show what they're about before assuming the worst. I say we give her at least a couple of weeks before concluding that her tenure as CTO is a complete failure.

[thekohser]

Seems to me they need someone whose OSS background is LAMP, not Java and OO.o...?

Wrong, Somey. For this job, you want a CTO with a background in French literature.

[Somey]

Whoa, thread necromancy.

For this job, you want a CTO with a background in French literature.

Hmm... She has a degree in French Literature, but that doesn't preclude her from having some talent for managing a technology operation. However, this statement about how "learning a language helped form the neural pathways that eventually helped her learn programming" is some of the worst and most obvious bullshit we've seen from a WMF executive yet, other than Jimbo himself - and that's really saying something.

"Neural pathways," my ass. You learn programming because someone hands you a computer and a task that requires it, and you have sufficient confidence in your brain-power to give it a shot. The point is, she shouldn't feel compelled to make excuses for her degree in French Literature. Rather, she should take every possible opportunity to expound on the relative merits of Voltaire and Rabelais, and how they're more readable than the execrable Marcel Proust, whom I've never been able to tolerate in unsummarized form.